Sunday, September 30, 2012

No, this is
not about Lord Ram, whom the Social Genius calls a “Divine encroacher”. This is
about another Ram who has almost encroached. The Coimbatore police have filed
an FIR against N. Ram of The Hindu and others in a case of
trespass, coercion and other offences. The case has its origins in 2004 when Kasturi & Sons Ltd. (KSL) sold
controlling stakes in a company of KSL to Cheran Enterprises, a firm of K.C. Palanasmi, AIADMK member, agriculturalist
and entrepreneur. Seems after the sale in 2004 the land prices skyrocketed and
since then Palanasami seems to have been frequently harassed and threatened
into reversing the sale by KSL and their goons. The pressure on Palanasami to
reverse the sale and return the land to KSL appears to have gotten worse after
the DMK came to power in 2006. The FIR also names Jyothimani, son-in law of Karunanidhi’s
daughter Selvi. So there you are, a terrible nexus of big media house and a
political party in a land grabbing attempt. Together they put their "wiseguys" into action. When I called our MSM India’s biggest mafia there were
good reasons for it and The Hindu group just added one more.

The story was
reported mildly in January 2012 by a few newspapers and the headline typically
was: “N. Ram denies charges of land
grabbing”. The Hindustan Times (see
pic) reported on January 26, 2012 (summarised):

Former AIADMK MP KC Palanisami accused N Ram of The Hindu and some directors
of KSL of criminal intimidation and landgrabbing. In a complaint to the state
DGP and Chennai city police commissioner, he alleged that Ram was using
coercive tactics to force him to part with a property worth Rs.400 crore for
Rs.30 crore. N Ram dismissed the allegations and said KSL will sue Palanisami
for making wild allegations. "We have a dossier on him documenting his
past, and court observations against him. We will sue him and all media
outfits that carried the scandalous falsehood. He is also a habitual
retractor," Ram told HT. Palanasami said in 2004 KSL sold him two
companies which owned properties including a golf course running on losses. But
as soon as land price began to rise, the company wanted to buy back the
properties at a significantly low cost. “After
the government changed in Tamil Nadu in 2006 the pressure began to mount,"
alleged Palanisami. "I had lodged a police complaint and recorded my
statement with a magistrate. Till now there has been no action," he added.

The FIR (Click to enlarge)

Well, things seem to have turned a different corner when the DMK was voted
out and AIADMK returned to power in 2011. But the latest story, which was first
reported by a little known Tamil newspaper Savukku, has taken a turn for the
worse. The Coimbatore police have filed an FIR
(No.85/2012, Serial No.C-0161685) on
September 24 and charged Ram and others under sections 120-B, 457 and 395. The
report states the maximum punishment under section 395 is life imprisonment.
(Read the Savukku report in
Tamil or have it translated). The only other newspaper to report these events,
till the time of writing, is The Pioneer. All other newspapers seem to be wondering if they should
report it or not.

The media, with their Unions of Snakes, like the NBA, is quite well
known to cover up their own crimes. It is likely this news will be suppressed
too. Mind you, this is no minor squabble or dispute. After years of being
harassed and threatened the AIADMK member has finally managed to get the FIR
registered by police. Even more importantly, N. Ram was not reachable for
comment according to the Pioneer. Here’s what The Pioneer states: “Though Ram’s
office was contacted for his version of the report, his secretary said that he
was out of town. But Ram had filed an anticipatory bail plea with the Madras
High Court which adjourned the case to October 3”. Hmm.. so from rubbishing all
charges and even threatening to sue for defamation N. Ram is not reachable for
comment. A former editor of The Hindu, a
major newspaper, and a director in the company has been reduced to seeking
Anticipatory bail. I wonder if they should at least now change the name of
the paper from ‘The Hindu’ to ‘The Realtor’. That would be far more appropriate
since the paper doesn’t seem even remotely Hindu.

So that’s our politico-media complex; the so called fourth estate
indulging in real estate skulduggery. Now, imagine if the DMK had not lost
power in 2011. I wonder if the case would have progressed and Palanisami would
have managed to register the FIR or even retain his land. I have serious
doubts. There have been whispers of shady real estate dealings of quite a few
media houses. One hopes a new govt will investigate the crooks.

Had it been anyone else, especially a political member from the
Opposition to UPA or a business outfit not so obliging with advertisements, the
news would have been flashed over a thousand times as Breaking News on all TV
channels: ‘N. Ram seeks anticipatory
bail in land-grab case”. But hey, there’s a reason why you don’t find that
headline on any channel or major newspapers. Just as N.Ram mentions he has a “dossier” on Palanisami maybe he has
dossiers on other media houses too. And maybe other media houses have their own
real estate crimes to hide too. After all, didn’t the Old Monk say “Hammam mein sab nange hai”?

Saturday, September 29, 2012

When Kishore Samrite, an
ex-MLA of Samajwadi Party, filed a case in the Allahabad HC against Rahul
Gandhi for alleged abduction of a woman named Sukanya there wasn’t a whisper on
any of our TV channels. The HC dismissed the case after Sukanya was reportedly produced in court and slapped a fine
of Rs.50 lakhs on Samrite. The case is now in the SC. Surprisingly CBI, which
investigated the case, has stated to SC such a woman doesn’t exist. Strange,
isn’t it? The Allahabad HC dismissed the case after the woman was reportedly
produced in court and now CBI claims in SC the woman doesn’t exist. Never
mind. Did you hear any of this on any TV news channel? Did you hear any of it
when Samrite actually filed the case in the Allahabad HC? Nothing! When the HC
dismissed the case and slapped a penalty, Headlines Today only reported the
dismissal and the penalty but not any details about the case. Read the post “Rahul Gandhi-Sukanya case: Amazing media silence”. Now imagine if some member from BJP or TMC or AIADMK or BJD
were involved in the case instead of RG. You can then imagine the case would be
on TV 24X7 for all these past 6 years without let up.

Is it any surprise that even Mamata Banerjee, in her interview to Rajdeep Sardesai, hints at “PaidNews”? Paid by Congress
particularly! Okay! Then there were reports about Sonia Gandhi being one of the richest women politicians on earth by
Business Insider. I’m sure
you’ve seen Arnab debating the
report on TimesNow. No? Or Rajdeep
Sardesai’s interview with her about that? No?
Yes, I think you finally remembered that discussion on the billions stop here
with Barkha. No? Damn! Everyone
missed these reports? Well, that’s our celebs in the media for you; shamelessly
devoted to maligning anyone and everyone opposed to Congress. It wasn’t even a
day since the news of the resignation of Ajit
Pawar, Deputy Chief Minister of Maharashtra, over the massive irrigation
scam that our media found a whipping-boy. One would have thought there would be
news about the scam, how it was operated, how the contracts were given out and
who benefitted from it. Nothing!

Politicians, regardless of parties, are known to dole out favours to
each other. But for the media to make extra-ordinary charges on the basis of
someone’s allegations is stretching a bit too far. They must have heard Arindam
Chaudhari’s clarion call: “Dare to think
beyond irrigation, water, canals and dams”. And Lo and behold, they found
Damania, Anjali Damania (AD). The Jenny-come-lately!
And the target? Nitin Gadkari (NG),
the BJP president. Anjali Damania seems to be a band member of Arvind Kejriwal
who is fighting… I don’t know who or what he is fighting anymore. From a
position of credibility and trust the man now enjoys as much credibility as
Nixon selling used cars.

So what was this Anjali’s problem? Seems she met NG three times over this irrigation
scam and according to her he had asked her to back off the allegations because Sharad
Pawar was a close friend. So she’s very upset that the one man, with a RSS
background, she trusted to arrest all scamsters in the irrigation scam let her
down. And she has proof of her discussions with him in the form of
an SMS she sent him. Damn! This is a warning for all you people out there. Make
sure nobody sends you SMSes; you could be incriminated in any crime of their
choice. So from September 27 it was AD all the way for our media crooks and the
irrigation scam itself was over and done with. While NDTV and CNN-IBN made
allegations along with AD on their channels, Times Now went further and held a full panel discussion. Some
interesting titbits from TimesNow:

Anjali showed her mobile to the world as demanded by Arnab. Then she
read out her SMS to NG as proof of her conversation with him. I can’t believe it was
actually an SMS. She invoked patriotism, invoked RSS bhakti, invoked blah blah…
She read it for nearly a minute or more. Who the hell sends SMSes that long? It
read more like a legal notice than a SMS. Well, I would estimate it could be
something like that. Send a message to make it part of a record that may be
handy in future. She doesn’t have even 1 message in acknowledgement or of any
nature from NG though.

During the discussions AD states she received threatening phone calls. On a single day she got 30 such calls she
mentions. All of that must be to stop her from blowing her “whistle” I
imagine. So a panellist asks her why she didn’t record any of those threats and
she responds with “am I expected to record all threatening phone calls”? Oh!
Now, she’s on a whistle-blowing trip and receives not one, not two, not three
but 30 phone threats in a single day and she still didn’t consider it necessary
to record even one of those? Umm.. routine for RTI activists I suppose. Fine! Strikingly,
she doesn’t even complain to or even inform the police. Does that sound normal to
you? Does that look like the behaviour of a reasonable person?

So the rants began from NDTV, Times Now, CNN-IBN, Headlines Today and I’m
sure all the other language channels too. “Gadkari silent”! “Gadkari fails to respond”!
“Gadkari hiding”! As if all that clearly established his guilt. On September 27
NG sent AD a legal notice charging her with defamation and all her claims to be
falsehoods and untruths. The best headline after this was, of course, from
Times Now (Sep 28), the guys who have already been slapped a 100-crore
defamation damage: “Irrigation scam puts
BJP on the back-foot”. Haha! So from Congress and NCP being the
perpetrators of the scam it is the opposition party that is guilty and is on
the back-foot. But Arnab did pull out a few documents that showed AD had more
than just public interest in mind while tracking the irrigation scam. Seems,
she held lands that would have been damaged by some dams.

As for the legal notice by Nitin Gadkari you have to only see the two
reports and how contrasting they are: TOI
and NDTV. For some reason NDTV doesn’t
reveal the full story while TOI has a little more than the legal notice. Let’s
read some excerpts from the TOI story: (Includes comments by Eknath Khadse,
leader of Opposition in the Maharashtra Assembly)

Gadkari's notice to Damania on Thursday evening asked her to retract
her "false, baseless and defamatory statements". "You are making
such false and baseless statements only to make sensation with the object to
defame my clients. The state BJP unit was the first to unearth the irrigation
scam and has undertaken public agitations...,'' said the notice. Senior BJP leader
Devendra Phadnavis said…. "In the last budget session, I raised several
queries based on the papers procured by the BJP and Damania through RTI. I had
even mentioned that IAC members were being targeted for raking up the scam. In
fact, she (Damania) wasn't even aware of the whistle-blower (chief engineer
Vijay Pandhare). I told her about the letter and gave her Pandhare's number"…
Further attacking Damania, Khadse said: "Damania had taken land near one of the irrigation dams. The govt
decided to raise the height of the dam, following which Damania's land was
getting affected. She wanted the govt to lower the height, but all her efforts
yielded no results. On the contrary, the govt forfeited her land as Damania had
purchased it without being eligible for it."

So, as usual, where it concerns the opposition, the onus to prove guilt
is not on the “accuser” but on the “accused” to prove innocence. That’s our
MSM. Throughout September 28 no channel asked any questions about AD’s lands or
their status. None! Who knows she might have even met NG (assuming she has indeed met him) to
save her lands and turned bitter if/when he had refused! Why isn’t that possible? I
can’t help rephrasing the statement of the Amicus in that SIT report about
another whistle blower, Sanjiv Bhatt’s claims: “There is no evidence that Anjali Damania did not meet Nitin Gadkari and seek to save her lands”. Now let the media twist that one. Well, move over Top Cop, Anjali Damania is here
and she’s the new darling of our media. The Jenny-come-lately!

Friday, September 28, 2012

One of the thrills of a job well-done is getting a compliment and Rajdeep Sardesai is justifiably
thrilled with The Telegraph’s report
on his interview with Mamata Banerjee
(MB). Well, the Social Genius did say that when it came to political analysis
RS is “Numero Uno”. So it must be thrilling for the “Numero Uno” of political
analysis to be covered by the “Numero Uno” paper of Kolkata. Incidentally, the
tweets were on September 27 morning. Catch the interview on the CNN-IBN website with the
transcripts. The transcripts don’t cover the full interview but just about less
than half of it. One wonders what happened to the rest.

MB is a former Congress member who set up her own party, TMC, and has
performed a once unthinkable miracle of unseating the CPM from power in Bengal almost single-handedly. For this CNN-IBN
had awarded her the “Indian of the year award” (Politician). She makes
some statements in bits and pieces so those have to be interpreted. RS has
frequently called her a “street-fighter” and he does so during the interview
too. There isn't much in the interview from MB on the political front that isn't already known. What Rajdeep may not have anticipated is the manner in which she slammed
the media in general and a bit more. Let’s see some exchanges (edited
excerpts):

RS: Sonia Gandhi the other
day said that the government is stable and it will last its full term till
2014. Do you believe that this Manmohan Singh government will last till 2014?

MB: It is stable of the corruption, by the corruption, for the
corruption. But it is not stable from the public point of view.

RS: When you say that are
you saying somewhere that you feel that the Congress will threaten other
parties like Mulayam and Mayawati to support it, that they will use the CBI for
example, is that your fear? That they will try to stay in power using ‘saam’
(influence), ‘daan’ (bribe), ‘dand’ (punishment), ‘bhed’ (division).

MB: Money power, muscle
power and mafia power. These three
powers they are using. I don’t know why. Why in our country, which has a
democratic setup, why are we afraid of the CBI before taking any decision?....

RS: You believe that this
government use to misuse the CBI to challenge their rivals? (Given that RS is
such a great political analyst it’s good that at least at this point he has
“discovered” that CBI was and is being misused. Must have felt like discovering
fire).

MB: This is not only now, it
is from the beginning when we were elected, since 2009 after Parliament
elections….

Those statements by MB should have been headlines in every newspaper in
this country. They are so dangerous that misuse of CBI and the rampant
corruption threaten every democratic institution. Unfortunately, because this
interview was given to a particular channel the other TV channels are likely to
ignore all the statements made by MB. In the chat MB slams Manmohan Singh in a
manner that makes him appear worse than a puppet and even mimics him on some
occasions.

There are some more indicators that make terrible reading for RS during
the interview: (By timeline in the video):

16.50: On the FDI issue
here’s MB’s answer that raps media in general. I wonder if RS got the hint:

RS: ’Business Standard’
article says at 3.30 pm on September 20, Trinamool website had 2009 manifesto
saying entry of large domestic and foreign capital in retail trade will occur
and it has now been removed.

MB: No. They are some
sections of the Congress, they are getting advertisements and money from the
Congress. They have been paid by the Congress for image building programme, we
cannot pay that amount.

I like the way RS has even noted the timeline of the Business Standard
article. This attention to detail gets my admiration. But the transcripts have
cleverly omitted a small detail. MB said
they are paid 100 crores. I don’t think she meant Business Standard alone
but that the media is being paid hundreds of crores by Congress for “image
building”. That’s my interpretation. She was being kind. I doubt its only image
that the payment is for. There has to be a lot more that can be bought for
hundreds of crores.

26.47: RS asks if the reason
for shifting of an Investment summit from Kolkata to Lucknow was caused by MB’s
walk out of UPA. Hardly any doubt but what exactly has UP achieved under
Akhilesh Yadav for this reward? Well, I suppose 24 hour power supply to the
Gandhi family constituencies might be a good place to start.

32.08: On reforms MB states
this is influenced by some “big friends” who want some reforms and that is what
influences the decision. She goes on to state that to please these “big
friends” the GOI treats “Indians as
guinea pigs”. Umm.. publicly the Congress calls them Aam Aadmi though.

But Mamata Banerjee reserved the most resounding slaps for Rajdeep
Sardesai. Some of these are not going to make headlines on his channel or any
media outlet for obvious reasons.

36.35: To a question on
development MB tells RS he cannot sit in Delhi and talk about development in
Bengal without going into any details. Isn’t that true for most of our media
celebs who conduct interviews? No research, no homework but go a with a general
‘stereotype’ question. I hope RS learns.

41.35 to 42.14: RS
repeatedly taunts MB as running a One-woman party as even the tagline in the
pic from the interview labels it. He even asks her if “Party is Mamata and
Mamata is party” and later if she sees media as her enemy. First she mentions
how corporations and political parties have bought media and then MB makes a
stunning point to him: “Ask the people
whether the media plays a neutral role or not”. I think in very polite
words MB told RS that most media channels are Congress “brokers” though she
didn’t use the words that I do.

Then, on the issue of whether she is running a one-woman party she
points to Mulayam and SP, Mayawati and BSP and finally Congress too when she
challenges a stung RS thus: “Why don’t
you ask this question to Sonia Gandhi. Because you people have no guts”. RS
comes up with a lame excuse “but she
doesn’t give interviews like you”. Well, a responsible media would have
told the Congress ‘take a walk, we won’t cover you if your bosses don’t allow
fair time to the media. We won’t cover you if you don’t disclose illnesses and
travels of your party leader’. Instead, our media, just like RS does, ridicules
those who do give them interviews and even ridicule medical treatments of other
party leaders. Shameful for Rajdeep! Maybe Rajdeep and other media celebs are
just as scared that if they challenge Sonia Gandhi the Congress may let the CBI loose on them. That may produce some disastrous revelations like Radiagate. Wouldn’t
it?

42.49: And to the repeated
question on TMC being a one-woman party MB drives a hammer through Rajdeep’s
head. She says: “If I ask anyone who runs CNN-IBN everybody will say Rajdeep
Sardesai”. I wonder if RS got the message. That he is running as much a personalised
organisation that he accuses MB of. When it comes to CNN-IBN it gets even worse
considering he hires his spouse as deputy editor. That is cronyism plus
nepotism. Whether one agrees with MB’s politics or policies she did deliver a
rude awakening for Rajdeep. Will he learn? Your guess is as good as mine.

Somewhere in the interview Mamata Banerjee explains her frustration,
which seems to reflect those of citizens as well: “Every day we wake up with
the fear that what will happen next. Sometimes they will increase the price,
sometimes they will go for FDI in retail, sometimes
they go for corruption”. Haha! Though the last part is funny, I think she
was a bit off the mark. The “go for
corruption” is consistent and continuous and not sometimes.

Wednesday, September 26, 2012

A few nights ago a couple of friends and I were having dinner at a
restaurant. One of them is a top professional from the Pharma industry and the
other is an economy expert. One was a visitor to Gujarat, so the chat inevitably
veered around to Narendra Modi at some point. It was the usual set of questions
visitors to Gujarat have about Modi, the “Will he, won’t he?” types. No, not if
he will win Gujarat but if he will pitch for Delhi in 2014 or anytime general
elections are held, as a PM candidate. And whether he will able to tame or win
over the Delhi Establishment. Since there were news channels on with their
usual debates on TV at the restaurant, the other question was how certain
channels that were doing badly financially were still around. Answer to the
second question is simpler; if the channels are part of the “establishment” in
a ‘Banana republic’ it’s not
a problem.

So what about the “establishment”?
“… It includes leading politicians, senior civil servants, the most important
financiers and industrialists, governors of the BBC, and the Royal Court… The term in this sense was coined by the
British journalist Henry Fairlie, who in September 1955 in the London magazine
The Spectator defined that network of prominent, well-connected people as
"the Establishment", explaining: "By the 'Establishment', I do
not only mean the centres of official power—though they are certainly part of
it—but rather the whole matrix of official and social relations within which
power is exercised”. That sums it up quite neatly, doesn’t it? But do replace
the BBC with India’s Doordarshan and most of the private TV channels and the
Royal Court with the Indian ‘Royal Court’ and the picture is complete. Now does
it explain how loss-making TV channels survive? If most political funding is
from “anonymous donors” and if so much black money goes into electioneering is
it any different in the media? Corrupt crooks in the Politico-Media complex are not about to produce receipts for
“paid news”.

Then, creating this Establishment requires years of brand building. There
are many tiny corners in this vast country of ours where people, young and old,
still believe Indira Gandhi was the daughter of Mahatma Gandhi. Who’s gonna
complain about that, eh? That guy who said “What’s in a name..” would have
stabbed himself in the back, twice, and then run his own truck over himself,
again twice. Ever observed the credits of a modern-day, hi-tech Hollywood
movie? It takes anywhere between 500 and 1000 people to make one of those plus
a dozen odd companies that provide the effects, marketing, distribution. Then
it’s released in over 3000 screens at a time. The same goes for creating the “establishment”.
In fact it takes lakhs of people. One of the key features of building the establishment
is in using the magic name and like the movie ‘Terminator’ protect and
propagate the brand. Find success and create a trilogy. The credits for an “establishment”
movie might run like this (2:24 mins):

That’s just a small part of all the schemes and projects in the Nehru-Gandhi
brand name and scrolling at high-speed. If I were to include all the 450 schemes that A. Surya Prakash has listed and
scrolled it at normal speed, it would take at least 30 minutes to read all the
credits. (And he says those 450 are only in the last 18 years). Those 450 brand-builders are quite a handful and can "Terminate" any challenge to power. Also, Surya
Prakash’s list doesn’t include Mahatma Gandhi since he doesn’t belong to the “family”.
But hey, the “Gandhi” brand name is what it is and has the same effect on the
ground. So instead of a trilogy it could have been a Septology. Mahatma Gandhi à
Nehru à
Indira Gandhi à
Rajiv Gandhi à
Sanjay Gandhi à
Sonia Gandhi à
Rahul Gandhi. Oh, and there’s Priyanka Vadra
in the wings who can any day turn into Priyanka
Gandhi if and when required. If trilogy is about a series of 3, septology
is a series of 7.

What does Sanjay Gandhi have? Not much, but there’s a prominent
National Park in Borivali, Mumbai named after him? What about Sonia Gandhi? Ha!
You’ll be surprised. Since there was nothing else possible, Padma Shri horticulturist
Haji Kaleemullah Khan has named a ‘mango variety’ after Sonia Gandhi. Haha! Sounds fair for the ‘Mango Man’, doesn’t
it? What about Rahul Gandhi? He is too busy to bother about these things so the
Congress UP branch decided to name his birthday as “Farmers’ Rights Day”. If you thought that is all, you just
got lucky. You see RG is fond of eating at various homes and places. So this Canteen in M.S.University in
Baroda named all the dishes after RG and each dish is accompanied by a nice picture
of him. So you could order RahulGandhi-Samosas,
RahulGandhi-Rotis or just RahulGandhi-Coffee. And you will be
served!

We can ignore the light-hearted menu at the RG canteen. We can also
grant the projects in the name of Mahatma Gandhi, given that he is now an international
icon. There are streets and monuments to his name across the world. A report in
2008 mentioned there’s a campaign to rename 185 streets in 39 countries after the Mahatma. Not much to
read in that but in India The Gandhi Septology also forms a great part of the “establishment”.
That’s the challenge for any non-Congress or non-Gandhi family person to seek
high offices. We can even accept a few monuments and projects in the name of
Nehru-Gandhi but surely 450 is an excess that is too glaring. Does the MSM
protest or complain?

This “establishment” includes govt schemes and projects, organisations
funded by the govt. They also include NGOs and individuals, educational
institutions, many govt titles (Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna?), think-tanks, many
media beneficiaries and wannabe beneficiaries. Most of them receive public land
and money one way or another. Collectively they could directly or indirectly
employ a million people or more. Would they want to let go of what they have
been enjoying under this Septology? So apart from official govt and political
propaganda these million plus people also spread the good word. In a brilliant
article Minhaz Merchant exposes how “How black economy subverts India’s politics” and how the officially declared “funds” can hardly cover
election expenses for any party.

Well, my answer to the friend who asked the question was that many
media channels also survive on such funds. Think about another one: Does
Reliance really expect to earn money from an investment in TV-18 group? Does it
expect to earn money from any media group? With investments like 1500 or 2000
crores, which is peanuts for Reliance, what do they really aim to earn? Your
guess is as good as mine. These 450 Nehru-Gandhi schemes and projects are
mostly moderate to heavy advertisers. Even at a measly 5 ads per annum to each
friendly media house that would be 2250 ads. Even at a heavily discounted rate,
of say Rs.20000/- per ad, you do the math for each media outlet. Then add to
that all the anniversaries of those who feed the “establishment”, it’s quite a
feast. Isn’t it? Suddenly there’s a Motilal
Nehru ad, in colour. Sure, celebrate his birth anniversary but why an ad?
Also add those individuals and groups who aren’t part of the govt but operate
NGOs and other feeder organisations. All
of this with your money! Why would they want to kill this goose? Motilal
Nehru? That just made it Octalogy, didn’t
it?